One-Stop Business Services Staff Trained for Occupational Analysis Projects

Business Services Staff from the Missouri Career Center joined together with WIB staff on November 21st to participate in a half-day training session to prepare for the rollout of the WorkKeys® Estimator occupational analysis tool as a valuable new service to business customers throughout Southwest Missouri. Steve Anderson from ACT®, the parent organization for WorkKeys® delivered the training and help local staff strategize on how to maximize the effectiveness of WorkKeys as part of the WIB’s Career Readiness Credential initiative.

Southwest Missouri’s approach with the WorkKeys® Estimator will help facilitate business customers in their recruiting, training, and development plans. Occupational profiles are analyzed and compared with local jobs to help businesses estimate the skill levels needed for top performance. Varying levels of occupational profiling are available. For jobs that need more complex analysis incorporated with high-stakes hiring decisions, the Alliance for Business Consulting and Development can take referrals from the Career Center.

For more on WorkKeys Estimator, contact Tracy Lemmons or Jasen Jones at the Joplin Career Center, (417) 629-3000.

WIB Benchmarking Research Now Online

Southwest Missouri's WIB was one of four leading-edge WIBs statewide to participate in a WIB Benchmarking Project. Other participating groups included the WIBs in Kansas City, Northwest Missouri, and Central Missouri, along with the Missouri Training and Employment Council (state WIB) and the Missouri Division of Workforce Development. Nina Babich and Donna Cruder with the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW), were contracted as consultants to facilitate the project.

The WIB Benchmarking Project researched and identified high-profile, top-performing WIBs for a series of site visits and interviews with staff and Board members at each of the participating sites. The WIBs ranged in geographic scope and population from rural, to suburban, to urban, and were located in the states of Texas, Connecticut, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Florida. Local WIB Executive Director, Jasen Jones, and Board Members Gary Little and Kevin Rainwater represented Southwest Missouri on the site visits in the Spring and Summer of 2006.

Insights collected from the site visits are summarized in a report on Critical Success Factors for WIBs. This report was released in November of 2006 and is downloadable here as a PDF.
The success factors identified and explained in the report will ultimately provide a foundation for chartering/certification guidelines for WIBs in Missouri. Check back often for Southwest Missouri's progress and success in the attainment of chartering guidelines as part of ongoing strategy through the WIB's Organizational Development workgroup.

NBLP Pairs SW MO with SC PA

The Southwest Missouri WIB was one of only 21 protege groups selected nationwide as a protege to particpate in the National Business Learning Partnership (NBLP). Jasen Jones and Tracy Lemmons represented Southwest Missouri recently at a kickoff training and matching event in Denver, Colorado. As part of the peer-to-peer matching of protege WIBs with mentoring WIBs, Southwest Missouri was paired with the WIB of South Central Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, PA.

The Pennsylvania group will guide Southwest Missouri on ways to take the WIB to the next level of excellence and impact. The project's workplan includes consulting and mentoring efforts related to use of Industry Consortium outreach, one-stop chartering, new data intelligence tools, and multi-region/interstate collaboration.

Keep track the progress of the NBLP project for Southwest Missouri through regular updates here at the WIB's Blog.

WIB News Watch Now Online

As part of its WorkforceZone family of publications and information products, the WIB has released it's debut newsletter, the WIB News Watch. This quick and easy read will be released at least every other month in printed form to members and stakeholders and online as a downloadable PDF free of charge.

Workforce Conference Presentation Handouts Now Downloadable Online

Presentation handouts for several of the sessions at the recent Missouri Governors Conference on Workforce Development are now available for download.

Wednesday, October 11th:

• Disability Program Navigator
• Lifelong Learning Accounts (LiLAs)
• Training Consortium - How to Make it Work
• Moving Beyond Just Business Services...Becoming a Business Champion
  

Thursday, October 12th:

• Transitioning to a Demand-Driven Workforce System
• Is America Falling Behind in Math and Science? And What Should WIBs do About It?
• Practical Tools for Workforce Professionals: The Latest in Missouri Labor Market Information
• Missouri Dept. of Corrections - A Philosophical Change in Business
• Operation Jumpstart: Entrepreneurial Opportunities for Non-Traditional Customers
• Missouri's CRC System, Why It Will Work!
• A Dialogue on Reaching and Serving People with Limited English Proficiency
• Healthcare Innovations: Expanding Nursing School Enrollment Through a Hospital-Employed Clinical Faculty Model
• Getting the Big Picture: Combining WorkKeys Foundational and Personal Skills Assessments to Find the Right Employees
• Matching Client Assessment to Career Options
• Achieving Partnerships and Performance with the Adult Common Measures
• Developing the Pipeline for Health Professions
• Rethinking Upgrading & Retention in Healthcare: The Universal Healthcare Worker
  

Friday, October 13th:

• Benchmarking WIBs: What Makes a Great Board? (This is the panel that featured SW MO WIB Exec Jasen Jones, and WIB Member Gary Little)
• State Administrators Forum

In addition to archives of conference handouts, the conference website operated by DWD has a photo gallery, a bank of press releases, and a participant survey.

Save the Date: MSSU Economic Summit Planned for April 2007

As reported in the newsletter from the Regional Economic Development Center at Missouri Southern State University (MSSU), their first-ever Regional Economic Summit is set for the last Friday in April. The event kicks off at 9:00 a.m. on the MSSU campus with world-renowned futurist Erik Peterson of the Center for International and Strategic Studies in Washington, DC. Mr. Pterson is the director of the widely admired Seven Revolutions futures project that examines the world economy and how to prepare for it.

The summit will feature break-out sessions on economic development nuts and bolts with legislators and professionals, sessions on the arts as development tools, the future of water quality and availability, international business in our region, and strategies to preserve our environment while accomodating development. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Missouri Governor Matt Blunt are invited guests to address the Summit.

Brochures announcing the summit are being prepared for distribution in early 2007. Dr. Tom Simpson heads up the Regional Economic Development Center at MSSU. He may contacted by phone at 417-625-3016 or by email to simpson-t@mssu.edu.

National Survey Shows Gaps in Employable Skills Among American Workers

A new study conducted by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and The Society for Human Resource Management further validates a local WIB strategic priority in boosting the skills and employability of job seekers and incumbent workers.

Are They Really Ready to Work is an in-depth study of the corporate perspective on the readiness of new entrants into the U.S. workforce by level of educational attainment. The study includes results from both an in-depth survey conducted during April and May 2006 and interviews with a sampling of a dozen HR and other senior executives.

Among the most important skills cited by the more than 400 employers that participated in the research include: Professionalism/Work Ethic, Oral and Written Communications, Teamwork/Collaboration, and Critical Thinking/Problem Solving. A workforce readiness report card is included which provides a summary of the basic knowledge and applied skills that are either "deficient" or "excellent" in those areas that employer respondents rate as "very important".

Research like this is helpful to the Workforce Investment Board by affirming local strategy efforts in improving the soft and basic skills of Southwest Missouri's workforce. Local initiatives, such as the Opportunity Outlook report, and the Work Readiness Credential demonstrate the WIB's direction in answering the market demands of businesses in our region.